As you probably saw, I sent out a couple of emails to my internet marketing newsletter subscribers asking:
“When it comes to creating and launching your own product, what do you see as the biggest single challenge?”
I gave these options:
First of all I’d like to say a BIG THANK YOU if you voted, I’ve always found that for some reason only a minority of people bother to participate in surveys like these so I appreciate it if you took the time!
And if you didn’t, of course that’s okay too… I hope you still get value from this write up 🙂
In this blog post we’ll look at:
1) Why I ran this survey
2) Results summary
3) Solutions to the challenges
Let’s get cracking…
Why I Ran This Survey
I ran this survey because selling your own digital product (PDF report, video course, software, audio etc) is one of the single best ways – if not the best way – to get started generating a sustainable monthly online income.
The benefits are huge:
1. Buyers
Subscribers from squeeze pages and email optin forms are great and I have many of those.
But buyers – people who have purchased one of your own products – are many times more valuable in terms of your future profits.
100 customers who’ve purchased your product (even if it’s $7) are more valuable than 1,000 subscribers who opted in for your free gift.
Other things equal, the more buyers you can get on your email list, the higher your monthly income will be.
2. Customers Pay For Your Traffic
You can drive traffic to squeeze pages using methods like guest posting, YouTube videos and forum marketing which costs you time.
Or you can buy Facebook ads, solos ads or banners which cost you money.
But if you offer a generous commission on your own product then affiliates will send you traffic: Part of each customer’s payment gets directed automatically to the affiliate as their reward.
This is immensely powerful: So far this year I’ve received 68,738 visitors purely from affiliates (and that’s just me – there are many bigger online businesses than mine using affiliate traffic across all sorts of online niches).
3. The Traffic Is Warm
The 68,738 visitors produced 5,169 individual sales – a conversion rate of around 7.5%, rounded to 8% in this screenshot:
This is ONLY traffic from affiliates. It doesn’t include any visitors or sales I sent from my lists. It’s also just one affiliate network I use for budget priced list building products.
Compare this to the 1% average online conversion and then consider that if you use other paid and free traffic sources then you’ll be doing very well if you can reach a 2% conversion rate.
In a nutshell, affiliate traffic converts so well because it’s WARM.
Unlike “cold” traffic (FB Ads, Solo Ads, YouTube videos, guest posting etc) where you have to work pretty hard to warm visitors up in order to make a sale, affiliate traffic has been referred by a trusted source (usually other marketers’ email lists) and so is much more “ready to buy”.
PLEASE NOTE: I DO use other non-product creation methods in my business, including some pure affiliate marketing. The money is nice but much less than from product creation. So in this post I’m not suggesting product creation is the only way to go. But the reality remains that if you want a sizeable and regular income online then it would be crazy to ignore it.
Right then, let’s move on to looking at the survey results.
Results Summary
Here’s a quick screenshot of the results:
Let’s break this down and focus on the solutions…
Challenge 1 (33%): What Product To Create (And How Without Expertise)
With almost a third of the votes this is by far the number one perceived challenge.
Here’s the solution…
Question: Armed with just your computer and an internet connection and 2-3 weeks could you:
- Create a video on how to create your first WordPress website?
- Use Google and affiliate networks to draw up a list of profitable niches and put them into a nicely formatted PDF report?
- Watch 15-20 YouTube videos on how to be more productive (get more work done in less time) and write up the best tips into a PDF?
- Buy 3 top selling products on losing belly fat, distil down the methods and tactics, then create a new guide?
- Send out a Google Docs survey to 20 successful currency traders asking them the how to get profitable trading currencies within 30 days from scratch. Then create an audio, video or report of your findings?
- Get a survival expert on Skype for 60 minutes to talk through their top 10 most valuable tools and gadgets they take into the wilderness?
- Hire a coder on Upwork.com to build a better version of a popular WordPress plugin or web browser extension?
- Search Google & job forums for tips on getting and succeeding in job interviews – then create a little guide from it aimed at job seekers?
These are all profitable ideas and you can do them without any existing expertise.
I hope you’ll note the methods that are used too: Google Docs Survey, Skype interview, YouTube research, buy top products and rework/update the content, gather resources from Google, forums, outsource on Upwork etc.
If you start thinking about these you begin to realise that you’re more like a publisher or a journalist – gathering up useful information to help customers save time.
You don’t need to be an expert yourself at all.
The key though is to pick a topic for your product that is a proven seller.
And the way to do that is to forget your own ideas and look carefully at your niche to see what customers are already spending money on.
Use sites like Clickbank, Udemy and JVZoo to do this but also subscribe to marketers in your niche and watch what they are promoting.
By all means update, enhance and put your own angle and twist on what you see, but ALWAYS stick with a core topic that is already selling!
Challenge 2 (17.8%): Worried About Doing All The Work And It Failing
This is a natural concern and a huge perceived problem.
Here’s the key to bypassing it:
1. Follow The Formula
The formula for success is this: Create a quality product that customers want to buy and present it on an attractive sales page.
When you have that you have the closest thing possible to an online ATM cash machine because all you really have to do is contact marketers with decent email lists in your niche and basically say,
“Here’s a copy of my product, do you think your audience might be interested in hearing about it? If so, I’m offering this commission…”
You’ll find a lot of affiliates (around 50% in my experience) will say yes because they’ll see that it’s a good product and is worth promoting because the sales page is also good.
2. Abandon Your Employee Mindset
I guarantee that most people reading this post have the employee mindset.
In school we are conditioned to get a job and later, as years of employment pass, that conditioning hardens.
As an employee it doesn’t matter if you have a bad day, frustrating week or stressful month: You still get paid.
You have certainty in financial reward. And this acts as a unconscious comfort blanket that wraps around you.
That’s why people fear doing the work on a project and it not paying off – it’s just so different to how most of us are brought up and what we’re used to.
You might want certainty but I’m afraid, in business, you simply can’t have it, not 100%. The sooner you embrace that, the more financial success you’ll begin to see.
If you don’t abandon your employee mindset then your subconscious will self-sabotage your success by making you quit every single project you start (sound familiar?).
I know this well because it’s happened to me.
You can’t completely eliminate the risk but the good news is that by following the formula (above) you can bump up your chances of a nice financial reward to a very high level (90%+ in my experience of observing and working with others).
And more good news: With an home based online business the start up costs can be kept incredibly small so there is very little financial risk anyway.
Finally, my other tip is stop thinking about “failure” and instead think about “testing”.
For example, let’s say I run with the example in the survival niche above (a very profitable niche I might add). I’d say to myself, “I’m going to put this product together and test the market. I’ll do my best and let’s see what result I get.”
Don’t get hung up on it, just get the product done, live and drive as many sales as you can.
That’s a success and a proper test.
But not starting or quitting during the project because it might not pay off is the only true failure that exists.
Challenge 3 (15%): What Niche To Choose
This is one challenge that you don’t want to delay, not least because you literally can’t make money without choosing your niche, but also because there’s no need to.
To state the obvious, you need a profitable niche.
The simplest and best way to find out if a niche is profitable is to look for existing products that are being sold in it online: Use Google, UDemy, Clickbank, etc to uncover this and if there is nothing being sold then forget it and move on.
Begin by writing down a list of your interests (e.g. woodworking, model railroads, scrapbooking), employment experience (e.g. sales, radio, management) and life experience (e.g. depression, losing weight, travel).
If any of them are profitable then great, choose and go forward.
If not, start off in the internet marketing (IM) niche: You obviously have an interest in it (your reading this for a start!) and as such you’re in a great position to create products that help people who aren’t as far down the road as you are.
To be absolutely clear: I am not in anyway suggesting you “fake it until you make it”, teach people how to make money when you haven’t or do anything underhand or that might be considered “questionable”.
That’s not ethical and you don’t need to anyway: Some of the product ideas I set out above are in the IM niche and can be done without any prior expertise or making any money.
Remember, you’re just the publisher or journalist bringing useful information to the table that will help your customers save time because they don’t have to do the research work themselves.
When it comes to niches, make the decision and go forward.
After one project you can either stick with the niche or use your newly acquired marketing skills in another niche.
A niche doesn’t have to be “for life” and that’s the great thing with product creation – 90% of the skills are evergreen and completely transferable to other online markets.
Challenge 4 (11.1%): How To Create A High Converting Sales Page
Creating a sales page that converts the visitors landing on it into paying customers is arguably the single most profitable skill there is.
Specifically, this skill is called copywriting.
That word alone sends shivers down the spine of most people which is why they ignore it and go and do other things that seem much more enjoyable like fiddling around with websites.
Of course, you can outsource your sales copy… I’ve never done that myself because I like to have control and (as I say) it’s such a worthwhile skill to learn yourself.
However, many very successful people do outsource so if you have the budget then this is a very worthwhile option.
On balance though I would recommend you learn how to create sales pages yourself.
How to do that is way beyond the scope of this post (we cover a lot in the members area) but here are some quick tips:
1. Study sales pages of best selling products. I take screen captures with Snagit, or free alternative Jing and save them in my “swipe” folder in Dropbox.
2. Understand that although sales pages can look intimidating they are really only a series of components (headline, narration, guarantee, benefit bullets, postscripts, etc). Learn what these components are and what order they should go in and you’re 80% of the way there to creating a great sales page.
3. Do only 30-40 minutes of work per day. Let’s say today you write your guarantee, then tomorrow 5 candidate headlines, then the next day a list of benefit bullets. This keeps it fresh in your mind, reduces overwhelm and you’ll be surprised how quickly your efforts cumulate after a week or so.
Challenge 5 (8.9%): How To Approach And Get Affiliates To Promote
I gave a little hint at this above. But the thing to do is let your sales page and product do the work for you.
Just be relaxed and friendly when you contact potential affiliates. Remember they make a living through promoting other people’s products and because your product and sales is good then they’ll be glad to hear about it.
Not everyone will say yes (a lot of affiliates will have other mailings or projects already lined up) but that’s okay and normal.
It’s quick to contact people and even just a single affiliate with a decent list can make you a few thousand in income.
Challenge 6 (7%): Emailing The Customer List Afterwards To Build Trust & Promote Products
Free content (blog posts, quick tips/resources in emails) and informative promotions (instead of “just buy this now!” nonsense) are the keys here.
Don’t over think it, only email when you feel you can add value to your subscribers lives and read the emails of other successful marketers in your niche (that you admire) for ideas on how to model your email copy.
Challenge 7 (3.9%): Worried About Having To Create New Products All The Time
You don’t need to – most products, if done correctly, can be made evergreen.
Yes, some people choose to follow the “perpetual launch model” with a new release every month. But that’s not a model I’ve ever followed. As I write this I’ve released 3 new products in the last 2 years and earn a very healthy 6-figure annual income online.
Some people do even less than me, they stick with one product and just work on improving and getting more traffic to it.
Whatever way feels right for you – it’s good.
Challenge 8 (3.3%): Handling Customer Support
In my experience only about 10-15% of your customers will ever contact you.
And of those that do 80% of the queries will be things like, “I can’t access my product” for which you can use template email replies (I use the “Canned Responses” free addon for Gmail)
Of course, you can outsource if you wish but really customer support is not a problem in the grand scheme of things.
Personally, I enjoy hearing from customers and it’s a great opportunity to learn more about how you can serve them better.
Above All Remember: YOU Can Do This – It’s ONLY A Matter Of Learning Each Step And Implementing It. Patience, Tenacity & Choosing To Enjoy The Learning Curve Are The Only Secrets!
There is so much more I could share with you on each of the topics we’ve covered but in the interests of brevity I’ve focused on the main points – I hope you’ve found them helpful.
There is a lot more in the members area – blatant plug 🙂 – including support from me and if you’re not a member already then sign up here for a trial and check it out.
Please drop a quick comment below and let me know what you think of all this, including questions. Good/Bad/Ugly, it’s all good – just fire away 🙂 Cheers, Rob.
Thank you Rob for this article,it is good to read positive steps and ideas. As we are self employed sometimes we do tend to go back to the employee mind set. I for one have done that and it really upsets the mind set and focus.
Pat Brosnan
Thanks for your feedback Pat. Glad you picked up on the “employee mindset” thing, it’s an important part of success online (with any business really).
Cheers, Rob.
what do you plan to do as a result of the survey replies?
Hi Ian, Thanks for your comment. Focus more training and products based on these challenges. Were think thinking of anything specific?
Just interested in your sales process. The results may be inconclusive. They may warrant 2 subsequent training products eg if both were 40%, but reveal nothing if there were 5 at 18%.
If there was an inconclusive result how would you communicate with your list?
Is there any value in a mailshot asking for their second choice?
ps, I was a bit to the point & perhaps lacking in charm in my original post, so I just want to thank you for the free info that you give out. You are one of very few people whose recommendations I trust.
Thanks Ian appreciated.
Fair comment on the result… The configuration and statistical validity of polls like these can always be scrutinised and some of your questions could be at least be partially answered with statistical tests to product confidence intervals. However, there’s always a huge risk of spurious accuracy so my approach is to combine anecdotal evidence from communicating with customers directly, survey/poll results and sales conversion data on what people actually buy in order to give a heuristic guide as to what topics to focus on in future.
In other words, I look at the different evidence and go with my gut instinct!
Cheers, Rob.
Hey rob,
Very informative post! I like it
Quick question you said you have only launched 3 products in 2 years.
How do you sustain sales for your product after the initial launch sales?
I have a launch next month and in launch week obviously it will sell, but once
the rush of affiliates have promoted, what do you do next? Or whats the most
effective thing to next, just keep contacting affiliates?
Cheers
Raj.S
Thanks for commenting Raj, great question 🙂
1. Yes, continue to contact new affiliates. Any product launch typically only scratches the surface of the available affiliate traffic so this is a big opportunity. After your initial product release it’s even easier to get new affiliates on board because you have conversion stats for the affiliates that have already promoted.
2. A great method is to ask your existing affiliates (and especially those ones that have done the best) to integrate a promotion for your product into their autoresponder. So as they get new subscribers, you get some of that traffic coming to your sales page.
3. Offer exclusive discount coupon codes to select affiliates (new or existing). Need to be fair to all customers here so think it through beforehand carefully but I’ve done pretty well out of this.
4. Re-publish your product on different networks. For example, my SpyBar product did (from memory) about 1,500+ copies on WarriorPlus, then I published on JVZoo and did 500, then MightyDeals (1,000), then DealFuel and so on. There are different “pools” of traffic and affiliates in different places so dip your toes into each pond.
There are several more methods but each one really doesn’t take that much work, just a few hours and sometimes even just a few emails and get you a lot more sales.
All the best, Rob. 🙂
Hi Rob,
As someone who’s been around IM for a long time (I videoed many IM events and made product for the event creator) I’ve seen and heard a lot of advice.
The information you’ve shared here is ‘gold’.
I just wanted to let anyone reading your excellent post that they just need to embrace your advice and follow through (and that includes myself who’s created a great product called ‘iVideo Mastery’ on using your iPhone, iPad or smart phone to make videos and then didn’t follow through with approaching affiliates….duh!!)
So well done on an excellent post and I look forward to more wisdom from you.
Thanks again,
Paul
PS I was one who responded to your survey 🙂
You have real words of wisdom there Paul… The “follow through” is indeed crucial and I think we’ve all started projects and then failed to complete them at some time or another.
Thanks very much for your comment and sharing your personal experience, I appreciate it and I’m sure other readers will too 🙂
Cheers, Rob.
Hi Rob,
Great article.
The thing I always need is more or better traffic that converts. I do affiliates now. But, as you know only a small amount of them do anything. Not complaining, that’s how it is with everything even your survey as you mentioned.
So, in the future, great traffic methods would be appreciated.
Thank you, Patrick
Hi Patrick,
Thanks for the feedback, appreciated 🙂
You’re absolutely right and this is the “80/20” rule in action: 80% of the traffic is driven by 20% of the affiliates. In fact, it’s more like 95/5 as I wrote about a while back in this post (opens in new tab).
I’d stick with affiliate but focus on selecting high quality ones and doing everything you can to help them mail more than once. Commission bumps, bonuses, prize contests are ways of doing this but communication is a big one too. The personal touch goes a long way I find!
Hope this helps a bit 🙂
Rob.
Dear Rob
As always a very helpful article for your readers.
Keep them coming.
Regards
Barrie
Appreciate that Barrie, always good to hear from you here on the blog 🙂
Cheers, Rob.
Hi Rob,
Thank you for this very informative product. I have been trapped in the employee mindset for more than half of my life. I want financial freedom and time to spend with my loved ones. This has motivated me to step out. Thank you very much.
You are very welcome Lynnette and wonderful to hear this has been motivational for you.
Remember, “You can do it!” Enjoy your journey towards greater freedom, there will be many bumps in the road I can guarantee that but it’s all worthwhile in the end 🙂
All the best, Rob.
Hi Rob this is a good survey a real eye opener and I fall on the employee bit it’s funny when you leave school it’s instilled in you to get a job and your right it stays with you I don’t no if it’s because my age am 62 but I find that employee bit very hard to deal with I want to do this but it’s compleatly different to what I have done all my working life driving trucks so I think if you can get over that your on to a winner and you won’t get paid if you sit and drink tea all day haha cheers Rob great post
Hi Trevor,
Thanks for your comment… You’re absolutely right, it definitely isn’t easy but you can do it by being aware of what is happening and slowly shifting your mindset to a new place. It probably took me a good 12 months to really get my head around it when I started online. But like most things the more you practice, the better you get. Eventually it feels natural and that’s the ultimate goal because then you don’t hold yourself back and don’t fear things not working out.
Not sure if that helps or not but great to hear your thinking about it anyway. Best of success to you!
Rob
Great Post, thanks. You mentioned Networks in your answer to Raj. Is there such a thing as a list of useful networks or is it a case of Googling it. if so how do you tell good from bad without out experience, please?
Hi Anne,
Thanks for your comment. Good question and there are lists in Google but they tend to include both good and bad networks in my experience.
So it’s really experience that will help you focus on which ones are worth looking at. Udemy, Skillshare, JVZoo, WarriorPlus, MightyDeals, CodeCanyon and Clickbank are the main ones I look at.
Sorry I can’t give you a more concrete answer but hope this helps Anne 🙂
Rob
Great post Rob.
The idea of using survey results as a guide for creating products is one that I use and one that’s been pretty reliable over the last 9 years that we’ve been doing it in our business (back to the days of the ASK campaigns).
Bayo
Hi Bayo,
Thank you, glad you liked it and totally agree on your endorsement of surveys. I have stacks in my Google Drive and they really are a valuable tool. Hopefully your comment and this post will readers to use them more.
Cheers, Rob.
Brilliant post Rob! Jam packed with useful nuggets. I especially liked the examples listed for potential products that could be created without being an expert, makes it crystal clear.
The idea that a chosen niche doesn’t have to be for life was very helpful to me too.
And you’ve reminded me about enjoying the journey which I have forgotten to do this week!
Examples always make things much clearer for me to understand things so I try to include them where I can Emma. Glad they helped you too 🙂
Great to hear about your other takeaways and thanks for commenting.
Best of success for your products!
Cheers, Rob.
Great article Rob! Love your traffic matrix. Anyways is there a software that you use to recruit and pay affiliates? Would like to do my own product too!
Thanks Rozli, nice to see you here on the blog 🙂
The only software I use for affiliates is Gmail to contact them and Excel to keep track of them. So not the kind of software I think you had in mind. I have seen “Affiliate Hunter” type software but to be honest the best way is just to keep things simple.
All the best,
Rob.
Hi Rob
Thanks for this great post. I have paid money for less information than you give away for free!!
I am just in the middle of creating my first product and I will be referring back to this post as a sort of road map for where I go to next at each stage.
Cheers
David 👍
Fantastic David, so glad to hear you’re getting stuck in and glad this post came at a good time for you 🙂
Appreciate you taking the time to comment too.
Cheers, Rob.
I’m curios as to why you say that YouTube is “cold traffic”. Surely not? They are “buyers” searching for us. We are not searching for them. I mean they are already in “buying mode” because they have a problem for which they seek a solution. After all, they search the very keywords we use!! e.g.”How to train your dog”, “How to loose weight” “How to save money” etc. I know these are very general simplistic terms but it illustrates my point that they are looking for what I can provide (hopefully!!). To some (admittedly less) extent it’s also true of Facebook ads as we can very selectively target our audience. Would welcome your views on this.
Hi Nigel,
Very fair point and something I should have probably clarified in the post…. Certainly there are people searching Google, YouTube and other places like Amazon looking to buy products and so are in the “ready to buy” mode. So provided your YouTube video does a good job the conversion rate will be higher than the 1% average. I actually covered this in a recent product and these sources of traffic are powerful. That said, it’s still had to beat a personal introduction from an trusted source which is basically what happens when an affiliate mails their list and recommends a product. In the post I spoke about warm traffic and cold traffic to make my points but in truth you could argue I was over simplistic because in reality there are many different “temperatures” depending upon the exactly situation. Still, referred traffic affiliate traffic is always going to be right up there, often at the top of the list. Hope this helps a bit Nigel, thanks for your comment 🙂 Cheers, Rob.
Thanks Rob, not just for the brilliant, useful information but also, for caring. All yoiu have written takes time.
I’m enjoying the 15 Step Course and the Members’ Area.
Best wishes, Gloria
You’re welcome Gloria. Thanks for your comment and great to hear you’re enjoying 15 Steps, keep going and please send in any question you have as they arise 🙂
Cheers, Rob.
Hi Rob
Your mission must be. ‘I will never give up wanting to help others achieve great things.
It is a bit of a slow process but I am getting there. It isn’t pretty yet but the blog is live. http://david-morans-health-blog.com/
Hi David,
Great to see you’ve been taking action. Keep going, one step at a time and I’ll look forward to seeing your first paid product up online soon I hope 🙂
Appreciate your comment – Rob.
I ‘bookmarked’ your blog for future reference, so I can continually review your report.
The comments and your answers are almost as good as the blog.
Well done.
Hi Orvel,
Thanks for your feedback and glad you got the value from the comments as well!
Cheers, Rob.
Hey Rob,
I’m kinda new to your list, but I did participate in your survey (I usually don’t, for whatever reason) and the results, your comments and the post comments, have gold nuggets through out … Almost “product worthy” (in my opinion). :^) Nice job!! Thanks.
Thank you Ken, I appreciate you participating in the survey and great to hear you’ve found this write up useful too 🙂
Hope to see you here on the blog again sometime!
Cheers, Rob.
Hi Rob,
This post is up to your usual excellence, with many actionable ‘helps’ – thanks! I also participated in your survey and was keen to see the results – and gratified that I was in good company with those whose foremost concern was how to create a product. Thanks for being the sort of guy that constantly re-invests in his customers’ success.
God bless,
Sue
Thank you for voting and posting your feedback Sue – glad you enjoyed the write up here!
Cheers, Rob
Hi Rob,
Really interesting to see the results of your survey and then your analysis. i dont have any problems re; niche selection, what product etc.
Rather I have to continually think “one step at a time” as you replied to David’s comment above.
I just have so many ideas that I have difficulty focusing & concentrate on just one – though which one ?? So I tend to try to do of my ideas which isn’t of course the way to go forward !
I am slowly learning. ……
Many thanks for another great blog post.
Cheers Alison
Hi Alison,
I think you touch on a really important issue here. I’ve definitely suffered from the “too many options/which one should I do” problem. It’s a bit like where I said “A niche doesn’t have to be for life”…. neither do projects you undertake. So just take one that appeals and do it. Afterwards you have the option to press the reset button and start fresh on a new project, or you can continue to ramp up the existing one.
Not sure if this helps Alison – thanks for sharing your thoughts, appreciated 🙂
Cheers, Rob.
Gidday Rob,
What an excellent article. So simple yet so full of useful and actionable information. Makes everything just seem to fall into place.
I have paid $27+ for e-books and got far less benefit from them so well done and thank you for sharing.
Cheers – John
Hi John,
Great to see you here on the blog, thanks for stopping by 🙂
Appreciate you kind words and great that you found it useful. I hope you’ll make some nice money from implementing some of the strategies and tactics.
Cheers, Rob.
Hi Rob
I’ll keep it short and sweet, another gem of of quality, common sense,valuable
information, the depth of your assistance appears bottomless.
Best Regards
Bob
Thanks Bob – glad you found this useful and appreciate your comment 🙂
Cheers, Rob.
Hi Rob
I was looking at producing a belly fat loss write up and see you suggestion of a 3 type comparison.
Do you think a link to an affiliate programme would be counterproductive and as always, would it be essential to include a disclaimer, to cover yourself, since people do strange things when they are desperate, don’t they.
Finally, if I may, what length would you consider an article such as this should be and could you give me your honest opinion of my efforts.
Thanks Rob
Hi John,
Thanks for your comment…
1. Yes, you can link to affiliate programs. That’s really a extra though, obviously the main idea here is creating your own product.
2. Disclaimer. First I have to say I’m not a lawyer so I can’t offer any kind of legal advice whatsoever, you must take responsibility for that yourself. This said, some things to consider (not advice): A disclaimer yes but more than that. You can make clear that you are not a doctor or medical expert of any kind (if that’s true) right up front in your sales page. Also, your advice is not a substitute for qualified advice etc. Instead of hiding this caution in the small print, be right up front. Let prospects know the product is about practical advice not medical advice.
3. Length of a report for a budget priced product ($7-$37) could be 7-50 pages, maybe 2,000-30,000 words. But the length isn’t really important, it’s the quality. You can gauge the quality required and make sure you exceed it by studying the 3 other popular products, as per the method explained in this case.
Hope this helps John 🙂
Cheers, Rob.
As always Rob, great content…doable and clear!
The survey results were really interesting too. It is always intriguing why people don’t partake in surveys if they know the information is confidential. I always try to partake, if it is appropriate, so that I too can gain the wisdom of the information gathered. So I appreciate you sharing the results.
I also appreciate the effort you have gone to in responding to each category.
Thanks, and cheers to your continuing success.
Marie
Thanks for this Marie.
Yes, it is strange about the low participation rates. Funnily enough I’ve found the same for cash prize contests. I think people subconsciously think “my vote/entry won’t make a difference”. However, if I email a link out to a PDF then the click rate is huge. Not quite sure what it is but some psychology going on I think!
Anyway, thanks for your vote and appreciate you sharing your thoughts here on the blog 🙂
Rob
Usefull and a understanding of your followers, as always.
Thank you Rob
Thanks for your kind words Marion and I appreciate your comment 🙂
Cheers, Rob.
Great to see this all written out in simple steps. Actually I’m at least 95% of the way there, looking at this post I now need to make my process smoother, faster, more evergreen and to get more affiliates. Which is really useful information, so thank you!
One question though, if that’s OK, I’ve been setting up whole sales funnels (front end upsell, downsell) – will affiliates want to promote my product if it’s just a single product with no funnel? I’d like to do this for a while because it’s a lot faster to roll products out that way and I’ll get a better feel for what people want to buy. Then I’d make a funnel for some of the best sellers.
Hi Helen,
Thanks for the feedback and excellent to hear that, well done on the action taking!
Yes, affiliates will promote a single product with no upsell. However, remember upsells add more revenue to the overall offer and therefore boost the Earnings Per Click (EPC) for affiliates. So just having one product is fine provided the EPC is high enough (generally over $1) to keep affiliates interested. The easiest way to do this is to 1) offer a higher commission and 2) make your sales page as good as possible (higher conversions means higher EPC means more affiliate traffic).
Cheers, Rob.
That’s really helpful, thanks very much!